Dad chases teenage boy from daughter's room -- again

This could look good at the bottom of my staircase at home.“It’s simple: Boys aren’t allowed upstairs at my house. Ever.”

That’s the lesson I learned from my seat on a bus as it hurtled home from my daughter’s last field trip as an elementary school student a couple of years ago. On the ride down to the whale watch I shared a seat with her, but on the way back I was quarantined with the other adults. Small talk turned into a two-hour intensive seminar on how to help my daughter (and me) survive her teenage years.

This teacher I ended up talking to -- for this column, we’ll call her Wendy -- didn’t know my daughter that well. But she had raised two daughters who had made it to college relatively unscathed, and her daughters were still making healthy decisions as young adults.

On that bus trip Wendy told me that her oldest had recently driven across half the country with a new boyfriend. Her daughter had called to assure her mom that sleeping arrangements were “proper” the entire drive. When they pulled into the driveway at home the boyfriend brought the bags through the front door and started heading up the stairs. He was brought to a quick stop.

Wendy’s husband quickly let the boy know, “I’ll take those from here.”

“Kids bedrooms should be a private, safe space,” Wendy explained. “If they don’t understand the value of that, we need to help them.”

The topic of daughter’s bedrooms has been on my mind for a few reasons. Tuesday’s Daddy's Home column about a different kind of sleepover took place just a year ago. Whenever I retell it I think of that first climb up to the guest room at my wife’s grand aunt’s house. In some ways these welcoming hosts had treated me more like an adult than anyone else before.

I also recently wrote a review of a young adult novel -- Donna Freitas’ "The Possibilities of Sainthood" -- that I had read with my oldest. I think I learned more from the main character -- Antonia Lucia Labella -- than my daughter did. Antonia wants to be a saint -- the first living saint –- but rather than guide us through the laws of the Catholic Church the book draws us into the almost-not-so-holy world of 15-year-old girl living in Providence, Rhode Island’s Italian community.

Digging into topics with children can be easier when you read books or watch movies together. "The Possibilities of Sainthood" gave me fertile ground to work with. The main character spends a lot of time in the book entertaining a boy on her fire escape at night -- and later in her bedroom itself. There is a surprising amount of action (all clean) that takes place in this girl’s bedroom, behind closed doors, away from the eyes of the caring adults in the house.

I asked my daughter, “So what did you think of the boys being in her room.”

“Pretty sketchy,” she said, delivering the answer she knew I wanted to hear.

My house is on the verge of an invasion by teenage boys, and I feel like I need to set out barbed wire. Even though my son lives upstairs, we’re setting the “no boys” rule in place (as the boy gets older we’ll expand it to cover his girlfriends).

As parents we can’t just set one rule and think we’re covered. When it comes to our houses, we need to be aware of who is home and what is going on. Did you hear about the mom who said “Hi” to her son’s best friend as he let himself into the house and ran upstairs? An hour later when her son came home she figured out the boy upstairs was visiting another, younger, more feminine family member.

You can’t make this stuff up.

As parents we need to set rules and monitor them. Before we set them we need to get the other adults in the house to agree to them. Here are some questions on this topic you might want to try to answer for yourself (the answers will likely vary depending on the age of your child):

Is it OK for my child to be home with friends alone?

When my child is in his or her bedroom with friends, is it OK for the door to be closed?

If it is OK for the door to be closed, how long should I wait between knocking and opening the door?

Is it OK for my child to be in his or her bedroom with someone of the opposite sex? (If it is, can the door be closed?)

Define “in the room” (for example, what about someone being outside a window)?

What are the consequences for breaking any of these rules?

I’d love to hear your answers. If you talk with the other adults in the house, don’t be surprised if you find yourself disagreeing, which is why you should talk about these issues AWAY from your kids.

A lot of people will talk about the need to “trust your kids.” There’s no question my friend Wendy trusts her daughters. Part of the reason why she can trust them is because she helped them understand the value of important things.

I joke that my daughter’s boyfriend will need to sleep in his car when he comes to visit. I’m not cruel, although through humor you often find truth. By the time my daughter wants to bring someone home I’ll have a bed for him to sleep in. By then I hope I’ve found that vintage travel-trailer I’ve always wanted. And maybe it’ll even have heat.

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Donna Freitas will be in Brattleboro Vermont next weekend during the town’s literary festival. Many other amazing writers will join her in FREE events. You can find out more information at the festival’s Website: www.brattleboroliteraryfestival.org.

As always, I love hearing your comments and questions. I see every comment listed on this site, and I’ll answer e-mails sent to daddyshome.davidpetrie@gmail.com